


Thunderstorms

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:16:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: An afternoon storm catches the brothers off guard and alters their lives forever. High school human AU.





	Thunderstorms

  


When she saw her pair, she was rushing from room to room, closing the west-facing windows against the wall of rain that had dropped around her without warning. It had come as a surprise to her pair too. No umbrellas or riding the bus or waiting it out at school. The two boys were sprinting along the side of the road, hair plastered to their heads, clothes past speckled, gone completely dark with wet. They were pulling the straps of their backpacks forward to keep the sacks tight against them, hoping to reduce the bouncing so that they might run with less jostle and resistance. She could almost feel the padded nylon panels and the textbooks sliding up and down their spines. Could remember when her body had been as much a home to her as theirs looked to them; when it was so much more of the world because she’d seen and heard so much less of everything else.

 

There was a timelessness to her two. Jeans, t-shirts, and knapsacks. The staples of decades of schoolchildren from preschool through PhDs. Long hair that was sixties, nineties, now, and centuries ago all at once. The look was one of the few things they wouldn’t be forced out of as soon as they’d gotten comfortable in it.

 

She could read the lightness in their limbs and strides, pleased to be free from school, even if it meant getting soaked. Relieved to be heading into an afternoon that would be their own. Armed with the rain as an excuse to stay inside lazing.

 

She saw them pass often. Made a point of looking. Knew the early days and late days, aligning with sport seasons. Liked to catch the snippets of their laughter and ever-lowering voices during the warmer months. Sometimes cracked a window when it was cool to hear them then too. Missed them most of the summer, though she was sometimes granted the pleasant surprise of seeing them pass by in the evening, each holding a towering ice cream cone that was melting its way across their knuckles.

 

They looked like a photo and its negative. One was so pale the sky reflected off his skin and painted him blue. He had a tumult of black hair framing a pastel face and a tendency to stare at the blond and swiftly redirect his head when he was about to be caught looking. The other had hair like corn silk that reflected as much sunlight as his skin seemed to have absorbed. His tan made her wonder if he worked on one of the farms a few miles north of her. He got caught staring at his friend all the time but never attempted to hide it. Only grinned. When he did look away, his eyes--and sometimes index fingers--followed birds and butterflies.

 

Best friends was her guess. Perhaps each of them the other’s boy next door.

 

The light and the crash were simultaneous and came as stealthily as the rain had done. Without the pause between flash and bang, it was difficult to recognize them. To remember that they were not two things but one. A thunderbolt. It was too much for such a small space. Overwhelming. The sound, the light, and the boy, inseparable, though the boy did not belong. He was frozen, all muscles fixed with flexing. His clothes had been blown off and were floating down along with strips of flesh, steaming and smoking as the rain extinguished them. His shoes and socks had been torn and thrown. They lay smouldering on the asphalt sixteen feet away, seeming so small from the window they could have belonged to a toddler.

 

When the light went out, he went limp on the ground.

 

The other boy climbed to his feet. She hadn’t seen him fall. His face seemed as white as his hair now. His lips had disappeared. Blood from a gash on his forehead ran down his face in pink streams, diluted by the rain, flowing into his right eye and blinding him so that he kept wiping it as he walked. She called 911 and ran.

 

“We have to get you inside,” she said, but the blond seemed not to hear her and only went on shaking the shoulders of the boy on the ground. When nothing happened, he pressed two fingers against the boy’s neck and started saying no, over and over, one endless refusal. “Come on,” she urged. “It isn’t safe out here. Well get him later.”

“Do his breathing, please,” the boy begged, and began chest compressions. He shrugged her hands away when she tried to stop him. “Hurry.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“I can’t leave him like this.”

“Help me carry him inside and I’ll do the breathing while you do the compressions,” she tried. Thunder made her flinch and duck. He shook his head and kept driving his palms into the center of the narrow chest.

“Don’t waste his time, just do it now.”

“Honey, we can’t help him if we’re dead too,” she said. He stilled as if he’d been slapped and she hated herself for using the truth to shock sense into him, but it got him moving, rising to a crouch.

“Get his legs,” he said, and gathered the dead boy up from the ground by the ribs while she grabbed him by the knees.

 

Above the muddy lakeside scent of rain, she could smell singed hair, burnt flesh, blood, and something sweet. Like jasmine. Half foul. She craned her neck and found the dark smear between the dead boy’s legs. Another of death’s insults. The cheap parting shot, marking you as empty and helpless, as if anyone could ever need another reminder.

 

Baby fat still smoothed the boy’s skin, making it so his slenderness couldn’t be mistaken for emaciation. So young. That secret, shining place where the back forked into buttocks could not have aged a day. She wagered not more than ten years had elapsed since someone else was wiping this bottom and washing this body, wishing it would never grow old.

 

The blond had been burned too. The seat of his jeans was gone on the right side and the flesh beneath had blistered in a shape like a palm frond. Its edges were almost as elaborate as those of a snowflake. He seemed not to notice. All his focus was in his arms.

 

The dead boy rolled and sagged, spine curving and slumping, limbs swaying. It slowed his pallbearers as they walked, tugging them into step and out of it again. Every few yards they had to pause and adjust their holds, standing on their left feet and raising him with the tops of their right thighs while scooping him up in their arms. They tried to grip him with their larger joints, the wrists and elbows, because their fingers were weak, exhausted by the weight and the schock.

 

When she’d bought the house, it had been exactly what she’d wanted. Acreage. Half woods, half meadow. The home itself was set back far enough from the road to provide quiet, privacy, and room for gardens. Now she would have given everything for a front door that opened straight onto the street. They shuffled up the long sidewalk lined with hyacinths. All the flowers’ heads were bowed by rain now, but still giving off a perfume that picked up the note of indole in the shit and curved it into something powdery and safe.

 

They laid him out on the slate foyer floor and the blond resumed his frantic compressions. Probably too hard, but she didn’t have the heart to stop him again. She pressed her fingers into the dead boy’s neck to feel for a pulse as she began her hopeless breathing. She saw her own face reflected in his eyes. They were large and round and made her think of fawns, foals, and other leggy, fragile things. The pupils were dilated despite the ceiling light above, blackening them and rendering them a better mirror, showing her that she was the only life or movement left in them. She saw the unblinking, half-closed lids, with rain caught like tears in their lashes. The wide, pink mouth was slack, slowly going blue, cooler every time she sealed her own over it, pinched his nose shut, and made a balloon of his breast.

 

The blond was breaking, though his rhythm never faltered. Other things were decaying. His breathing was ragged, halted by sobs, stuttering in and out on a high keen. His pronunciation of _No_ had gone sloppy so that it sounded like _Low_ now. His eyes were so wet the world could only have been a blur. He didn’t acknowledge the flashing lights and rush of blue uniforms. Didn’t register when he was lifted away as the paramedics swarmed the dead boy’s body.  

 

When they left, sirens blaring, she waited for the sky to clear, then went out to collect bookbags and clothing in the hope that something could be salvaged after so much waste. Nothing had been spared. It was all rent, scorched, and melted, or soaked to slimy ash.

  
  
  
  


She set an alarm to go off every day at half past four in the afternoon. When it rang, she pulled the curtains aside and watched until five, though she’d never seen them come later than a quarter to this time of year. She suspected baseball season kept them late in spring, as the school bus went past at two-thirty. But her pair did not walk by. Not even part of it. She wondered if the blond’s injuries had been worse than they’d seemed. The mark burned onto his backside could only have come from lightning. Perhaps he’d just been running on fear when she found him. Perhaps his heart had stopped too. She hoped he was simply taking the bus now, or that a parent picked him up, terrified of losing him. She didn’t know her boys’ names, but she’d checked the obituaries every day since the storm and had seen no one under eighty in them.

  
  
  


Three weeks later, a warm front came through around noon. By two-thirty, her house felt stuffy. She was opening the windows when she saw the blond boy walking home alone, his head bowed and his arms crossed over his belly. He stopped on the street in front of her house and stared at the ground. She knew what he saw. A mark in the concrete. Shallow blackened cracks, like the branches of a tree. She got up from the desk and took the stairs at a thumping rush. Decided to run out in her socks to catch up to him sooner. She stopped with a small, shocked _oh_ when she threw open the door and found him halfway up her sidewalk, stooping to admire the irises that stood behind the faded hyacinths in the beds that lined the path.

 

“Hello,” he said, ducking his head slightly and hurrying up the front steps of the porch, smiling somehow in spite of everything.

“Hi.” She held out her hand. “I’m Jane.”

“Thor,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it, still young enough to be unused to the gesture, staring at their limbs for some sign that he was doing it right. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he said, and she felt sick at the thought of having his thanks for the nothing that she’d done for him. “You saved my brother’s life.”

  


Thor told her that the EMTs from her 911 call got his brother’s heart started again en route to the ER and that Loki had since been admitted to the hospital. He hadn't said anything yet, but he’d opened his eyes and followed people's movements. Jane made no mention of brain damage or its possible extent. Instead she asked Thor why he wasn’t at the hospital now. He said he was walking home to get ready to go there. He liked to change, pack their dinner, and be set to leave before his mother came to get him so that he wouldn’t delay them. That way Loki wouldn’t be left alone at the hospital any longer than necessary. He and his mom would stay until nine or ten pm and then Thor’s father, who could fall asleep anywhere, would come and stay the night in Loki’s room. Jane asked Thor if she could drive him home and then drive him to the hospital to save his mother the trip.

“That would be great--if it isn’t any trouble.”

  
  
  


Jane hadn’t been to a hospital since her grandmother had died. She’d forgotten they way they made life feel so shabby. The surfaces were straight from greasy spoons. Smooth and cheap. Easy to clean--or replace. Green, camel, navy, and mauve. Vinyl upholstery and floors. Low patterned carpets meant to camouflage stains. The gowns the patients wore aged prematurely from frequent washings, and their construction was so simple as to be stingy. Meant for someone else’s ease, budget, and convenience. The eaten whiteness of the sheets spoke more of wounds and decay than of progress and healing. And the air was always cold and exhausting, its temperature kept low to discourage bacterial growth and stave off infection, chilling your stressed body, tightening already tensed muscles.

 

Thor navigated the maze of elevators, halls, food courts, and corridors like second nature. Jane had lost north not long after coming through the doors.

 

She heard a soft clicking sound as they got near Loki’s room. A woman was knitting, wielding needles thicker than drumsticks, nearly finished with a sweater done in a heavy gauge. Tall even when seated. Jane saw Thor’s chin and coloring, Loki’s eyes, and both the boys’ long legs crossed casually beneath the wool on the awkward pleather recliner. She set her work aside and Thor made the introductions, then stole his mother’s seat and scooted it closer to the bedside.

 

Thor heard his mom thanking Jane for saving both of her sons. He went red, remembering his refusal to leave the storm, though he knew he hadn’t been quite in his right mind at the time and that leaving his brother behind would have been a mistake regardless. Thor tuned out when she detailed Loki’s injuries. He knew the list too well, and knowing it changed nothing. It was like being told the number of elephants you’d have to stack on end to reach the moon. There was an entry burn from the bolt on the ball of Loki’s left foot and an exit wound slightly left of center on the top of his head. His scalp was shaved there and the burn was bandaged now. He had episodes of tachycardia, though those seemed to be decreasing in frequency. Secondary hyperhidrosis. His eardrums had ruptured, but had largely healed in the interim. A stripe of flesh up his left side had blistered and split, and some of it had burned away entirely. The rivets on Loki’s jeans and the change in his pocket had been heated up thousands of degrees by the lightning strike and had branded their round shapes onto his hips and thigh. His zipper had scorched a jagged, patchy line along his crotch.

 

Thor liked to list the ways that Loki was well. Heart beating. Lungs breathing. Eyes seeing. Brain activity on the EEG. Most of his skin had escaped burning and what hadn’t, though it was still red and raw, was responding well to treatment.

 

Frigga and Jane had gone for coffee in the cafe on the first floor when Loki fully woke up.

“Thor?” Loki asked, then frowned. Thor stood over his brother and held his hand, squeezing the meat and bone where the thumb joined the palm, feeling it squeeze back. “What happened?” Loki frowned again and reached for his head. Thor stopped his brother’s hands so he wouldn’t upset the bandages on his burn.

“You were struck by lightning,” Thor answered.

“What?”

“We were walking home from school and a storm came out of nowhere. The lightni-”

“Why are you whispering?” Loki asked, then made a guilty face and craned his neck to check his room for other occupants. He found none.

“I’m not,” Thor said, shaking his head.

“Did they put stuff in my ears? Gauze or something?”

“They said your hearing might have been damaged by the noise. My ears were ringing for days afterward.”

“What?”

Thor shut the door to Loki’s room.

“Can you hear me?” he asked, leaning close to Loki’s ear and speaking loudly without quite yelling.

“Yeah, but barely.”

Thor got his phone and typed everything out in a document for Loki to read.

Loki said it had only been two weeks. He expected his hearing--and everything else--to improve with more time. Thor wrote that that was what he figured too.

“When did you get a new phone?” Loki asked

Thor wrote that the storm had fried his last one. Loki’s too. And that there was a new one waiting for him at home in his room.

  
  
  


When the surfaces of his burns had finally healed enough to stay closed, Loki was allowed to leave the hospital. His heart rate still rose unpredictably, but not as often or dramatically as it had done for the first two weeks. His nerves had trouble distinguishing hot from cold, and he would often shiver or sweat when he had no need for either, but it wasn’t life-threatening.

 

His doctors told him he’d been lucky in many ways, including his sartorial choices, which had been an angle he’d never even considered. Aside from the rivets on his jeans and the rubber soles of his shoes, all of his clothing had been made of cotton, so it had burned away rather than melting and fusing to his skin like polyester would have done. When Loki felt well enough to do some cleaning, he went through his closet and donated everything in his wardrobe that wasn’t made entirely of natural fibers, then acquired new clothing made only of cotton, silk, rayon, linen, hemp, leather, wool, and bamboo. He got stretchy leggings, tall boots, long tunic tees, and chunky textured sweaters--often made by his mother. Women’s clothing, overwhelmingly, as he was too thin for menswear, which was just as well since he found men’s clothing stiff and ugly, and it was covered in rivets, zippers, and plastic buttons anyway.

 

At school Loki used crutches while Thor carried his bookbag between classes, but at home Loki preferred to hop around on his right foot, sometimes putting his hands on the walls for balance. Not wanting to scoot down the stairs on his butt to use the first floor bathroom, Loki let himself into the one upstairs, despite its being in use. Thor was standing at the sink in just his skin, brushing his teeth after a shower, moving slowly, though whether it was with reluctance to go to bed, daydreaming, worry, or absentmindedness, Loki couldn’t tell.  

“What’s this?” Loki asked, leaning down to peer at the mark on Thor’s backside. It had faded to pink and would soon be on its way to pale. “It looks like a fractal.”

Thor finished scrubbing his tongue and bent to spit white foam down the drain.

“They said that’s where the lightning hit me,” Thor replied, twisting at the waist to try to see behind himself. “It’s more of a graze compared to what you got, but I still couldn’t sit down for a week.”

Loki traced the mark with his fingertips.

“Was it the same bolt?”

“I think so, but can’t swear to it. I didn’t notice it at first. Maybe because I hit my head when the strike knocked me down... and then I saw you… It hurt later though, once they started treating me.”

Loki kept tracing the pattern. Thor could feel his brother’s breath flowing out across his skin, cooling it where he’d missed a few drops of water with his towel.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were struck too?”

“Figured you had enough on your own plate,” Thor shrugged.

“Did they find anything else?” Loki asked.

“Nothing yet. I’m still waiting for the fallout. They told me to watch out for depression, maybe PTSD.”

“Same,” Loki nodded, then straightened and pushed Thor’s hair back to reveal the wound on his forehead. The scrape from the street had been deep. The center was still scabbed. Thor was behaving himself. Leaving it alone. If he could resist the urge to pick at it once it began to itch, he’d barely have a mark in a month’s time. Most people would miss it. Loki would only be able to find it because he’d know to look for it.

“What about you?” Thor asked, hooking the hem of Loki’s shirt with his finger and lifting it up to look at his scars.

“I have to pee,” Loki remembered, and hopped away to the toilet before Thor could see.

Thor moved onto flossing.

 

After his brother left, Loki locked the door and undressed for his own shower. The lighting was bad in the bathroom at night, but not bad enough to conceal his scars. His burns had moved from red to coral and stood out starkly against the rest of him. When he looked down at himself without the doubling distance of a mirror, the new skin was shiny. In some places it looked like wax that had been poured onto his body and left to cool. In others, the textures looked stretched and fibrous. They made him think of the surface of Venus. All the strange new seams left him feeling like Frankenstein’s monster.

 

The scar on Loki’s head was not able to grow hair. He stopped straightening his curls so that their wild shapes would hide his bald patch, but he knew the wind blew its cover away every now and again.

 

Though the ruptures to the drums had fully healed, Loki’s inner ears had been irreparably damaged, leaving the world around him at a whisper. He stopped tucking his hair behind his ears and pulled it forward to conceal his hearing aids.

 

The devices let him hear, but they could not help him listen. Straight As turned into Ds and Fs except in math, where Cs turned into As. The fixed meanings of numbers could be grasped at a glance. Words often had half a dozen meanings apiece, and the right one could only be determined by its context. With so many variables, Loki’s mind wandered off before a sentence could take shape. Thor began to read their biology and English assignments aloud to his brother, often repeatedly. He offered summaries and shared his notes. It helped with papers, studying, and book report homework, but not with the hours spent in classrooms answering questions and taking exams.

  


Loki wasn’t supposed to leave his hearing aids in overnight and his vibrating alarm either woke him with such a shock it upset him for the rest of the day, or else it failed to wake him at all. It left him nervous and watchful, which lightened his sleep and caused frequent waking. After a week of it, his head sagged onto his plate at the dinner table. Thor became Loki’s new alarm, coming in on weekday mornings to lightly rub his brother’s shoulder or squeeze his ankle until he sat up and got out from under the blankets--Thor learned after the first day that if Loki said he would get up in one more minute, it was a lie. The relief of knowing he wouldn’t be late let Loki sleep more soundly, which Thor hoped would help his brother heal.

 

Their fifteen minute walks to and from school became half hour bus rides each way. Loki stared out the window throughout the drive, but his eyes never darted back and forth to follow anything. He didn’t read either, as he used to do during car trips. Thor slept through the trip to school in the mornings and did his math homework on the rides home. Travel times in their household were further increased by Loki’s panicked request--upon his return from the hospital--that they not got down the road on which he’d been struck by lightning. The detour was only half a mile out of the way, so no one minded. It was simply another thing that had changed.

  


“Do I look weird?” Loki asked, once they’d exited the bus at the end of his third week back at school.

“No,” Thor said, wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. “Why?”

“Everyone was staring at me.”

“They’ve always stared at you,” Thor laughed, and Loki frowned.

“You don’t think they’re looking at my crutches?” Loki asked. “Or my h- hair?”

Thor heard the unspoken _head_ his brother had been thinking.

“They’re not looking at your crutches, Loki,” Thor soothed. “You look like a runway model doing a soft goth elf cosplay. They’re staring because you make them thirsty.”

Loki went pink and looked off into the flowerbeds for the rest of the walk up the driveway.

  
  
  


Thor wanted to get something to thank Jane. When he’d stopped by to say it, she’d done him another favor. He supposed he’d be indebted to her forever anyway, but a drop in the ocean of that debt seemed infinitely better than offering nothing. He opted for gladiolus bulbs because the blooms struck him as a cross between irises and hyacinths. Frigga called Jane to make plans. The weather being unseasonably warm that day, they opted to meet up for ice cream. Thor knew Loki wouldn’t go anywhere near Jane’s house, but he hoped the promise of dessert would entice him out.

“We’re heading to House of Flavors with Jane,” Thor said, knocking on Loki’s door frame as he made his way in. Loki was on his back in bed, looking at the ceiling with a book lying open face down on his chest. Thor looked up to see if there was a moth or spider his brother was watching, but found only matte white.  

“Have fun,” Loki said, lifting his fingers from the comforter in a small wave.

“Aren’t you coming?” Thor asked, walking further into the room in the hope that Loki would at least look at him. His brother was done with crutches, so the logistics of navigating the ice cream parlor wouldn’t be difficult.

“No.”

“Please?”

“I don’t want to.”

“It’ll only be, like, half an hour-”

“I said no,” Loki snapped, swinging to his feet, sending the book to the floor with a flutter of pages and a flapping thud.

“She saved your life. Can’t you-”

“Well then she should have to fucking live it,” Loki snarled, and hit Thor hard with the heel of his hand.

 

Frigga saw the goose egg swelling on Thor’s forehead when he came down to tell her Loki wouldn’t be joining them. She started toward the stairs and he walked backward fast, putting himself in front of her and wrapping his arms around her, leaning forward and going half limp to slow her with his weight.

“It was my fault,” Thor whispered.

“No-”

“Mom, it _was_ ,” Thor insisted. “I was being annoying.”

“Even if that’s true, it’s no excuse.”

“I don’t think he can help it,” Thor breathed, and Frigga stopped resisting so that they wobbled for a moment and Thor had to catch her so he didn’t tip her backward. “Sorry,” Thor said.

“I’m still going to talk to him about it later.”

Thor frowned, but nodded, and went off to sign the card _With love, the Heldigs_ where he had hoped they would all write their own names.

 

Jane spotted the bump as soon as she saw Thor. While Frigga was ordering a sundae, she quietly asked him what had happened.

“Loki’s had a pretty short temper lately,” he admitted. “But, to be fair, I’m pretty irritating.”

“Yeah, I was just going to tell you to piss off,” she teased, and watched his eyes close with his smile as his cheeks went pink. “Is this a regular occurrence?”

“No, he usually just swears at his homework or swears in class when the time’s up and he hasn’t finished his test. Stuff like that.”

“The gap between the old normal and the new normal gets to him,” she said, and Thor went red again for a different reason.

She stepped ahead and placed her order to give him a moment to clear his throat and collect himself before the server asked him what he wanted.

 

Jane loved the gift. She and Frigga talked about their gardens while Thor used his phone to try to keep up with the names of all the flowers that were whizzing back and forth across the table. As they were leaving, he ran back to the counter to get two scoops of chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a waffle cone to bring home for his brother.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The city set off fireworks for Memorial Day on the Sunday night before the holiday. Thor had forgotten about them, though he remembered the three day weekend. The first pop spooked him and he briefly wondered if it was gunfire before he saw the lights out the window. He had a perfect view from his bedroom. Sprays of red, gold, green, and purple unfolded and fell, flickering away behind a screen of cottonwood trees.

“Loki!” Thor called in the direction of the door, using what he considered a polite, inviting yell. He made up his bed so that they’d have a decent place to sit while they watched. “Get in here! I’ve got box seats.”

 

When, after ten seconds, Thor hadn’t received a response or heard footsteps, he waffled, calculating, then cursed and ran to his brother’s room, having decided that the sooner he left, the less likely they’d be to miss the finale.

 

The door was shut, but Thor could see light spilling out from underneath it. He knocked and got no answer, so he assumed his brother had fallen asleep and quietly peeked in. The room was empty. Thor was taking a step backward into the hall to call downstairs when he spotted Loki’s hearing aids lying on the carpet just outside the closet. When he opened it, he almost didn’t see his brother, sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest, sheltered by t-shirt and trouser hems, his hands over his ears and his eyes screwed shut.

 

Loki flinched when Thor stepped in and sat down in front of him. Thor reached under the bi-fold door to pull it shut from the inside, then scooted forward until he was nearly perched on Loki’s toes. He bracketed his brother’s legs with his own, wrapped his arms around Loki’s shaking knees, and let his head sag onto them. He felt Loki’s forehead come to rest on the side of his skull a moment later.

 

After half an hour, Thor went out to see if things had calmed down. The city’s display was finished, but neighbors were setting off smaller fireworks of their own, too low to be seen above the trees, but loud and erratic, so that they never ceased to startle. Thor grabbed Loki’s phone from the desk and brought it into the closet with him so they could type with one and use the other as a flashlight. He asked about moving into the basement and watching a loud movie, which Loki agreed to, noting it would be far more comfortable than the closet floor and probably more muffled too.

 

Loki bolted down the steps and put on _Fury Road_ with closed captioning while Thor microwaved popcorn, poured potato chips into a bowl, and got glasses of water.

 

They scooted the ottoman to the inner corner of the sectional and stretched out side by side with their snacks propped between their hips and their drinks sweating pleasantly against their palms.

 

“Should we sleep down here?” Loki asked, when the movie was over. Thor didn’t see why he would need to sleep in the basement too, as he wasn’t upset by the fireworks, so he was pleased to have been included solely for company.

 _We might as well. We don’t have to get up tomorrow. And you never know when some asshole is going to set off an M-80,_ Thor texted

“Exactly,” Loki nodded, eating the potato chip crumbs and stray bits of popcorn that had bounced out of his mouth to land on his clothes and on the cushions.

_Should we pull out the bed or just sleep on the seats?_

“Bed,” Loki answered, without seeming to think about it. “The seats are fine for napping, but they never feel wide enough overnight.”

 

Thor went upstairs to change into his pajamas and get blankets, then grabbed Loki’s pajamas and toothbrush, pre-loaded with paste.  

 

Loki had the sofa bed unfolded when Thor got back and together they wrestled a fitted sheet into place. Loki shut the door behind him when he went to brush his teeth. When Thor checked, he found his brother had taken his pajamas with him. He hadn’t seen Loki’s side since the day it was torn open. He’d caught a few glimpses of the sole of his foot, mostly when it was bent up behind Loki as he hopped around the house. The hole in it was still deep. The skin there was thick and tough and grew back slowly. It might be years before it filled all the way in, and whether or not it would manage to do so smoothly was anyone’s guess.

  


Loki dropped onto the bed, rolled to the center of the mattress, and threw his limbs wide, knocking Thor’s ankle and hip. It would have sparked shoving and wrestling just a few years ago. Now Thor only tipped onto his side and grabbed his brother’s upper arm as if he were going to climb it like rope. He didn’t squeeze it or thrash it. Only held on. He could feel Loki’s pulse beneath his fingertips, pressing up against them at a healthy rate.

“Can you reach the lights?” Loki asked, and Thor clambered over the back of the couch to get the switch by the stairs, then carefully got back in bed again by touch and memory. The sprawl was gone, but Loki seemed closer. There was only the amber haze of the nightlight drifting dimly from the bathroom and Thor’s eyes hadn’t adjusted enough to see, but when he felt behind him, he was nearly at the edge of the mattress, and when he curled on his side in a shallow S, his knees bumped Loki’s legs and his arms were folded against Loki’s side. He felt Loki turn and then Loki was patting his chest, searching for something.

“Can you lie on your back?” Loki asked, and Thor grabbed Loki’s hand, put it on his own face, and nodded to say yes. Then he nudged his brother gently with the backs of his fingers to get him to scoot over and make the room to grant the request.

 

Thor wondered if he made the bed dip too deeply when he was lying on his side. If the weight of his chest and shoulders sank the mattress and sent Loki sliding down toward him. But if that had been the case Loki could have scooted away. Instead he only moved enough to let Thor lie flat, then rolled into Thor’s side again. Thor’s arm felt awkward, buried between them. Loki seemed to think so too, for he leaned back to peel it out of its grave and then laid it above his shoulders, put his pillow over it--whether to make it more comfortable or to keep it from going numb, Thor wasn’t sure--and snuggled back up against Thor’s flank. Then Loki went still and Thor wished his brother could hear him so he could ask him what he needed. If he wanted the light back on. If he wanted to watch another movie as a distraction. If he wanted to switch sides in case it hurt his burns to lie on his left. The last one got Thor worried. He sat up and heard a soft curse behind him.

“Thor, I’m sorry,” Loki said. “I’ll scoot over.”

Thor stopped his brother with a hand to his chest, then fumbled until he found Loki’s left wrist, kissed his palm, and held onto it as he climbed over him and settled on Loki’s right. He tugged Loki’s arm gently until Loki rolled toward him.

 

Thor learned that all the mattress that had gone missing had indeed been hidden behind his brother’s back. He thought he should have found it funny--or infuriating. He probably would have felt each way at two different points in the past. But, from this angle, all the empty space looked like something that was sneaking up on his brother. Some void, threatening to swallow him whole. He slid his arm under Loki’s neck again and Loki rearranged the pillow, cautiously assuming the mirror of their former position.

“Right arm sore from fapping?” Loki asked.

Thor loosely palmed Loki’s face and dragged limp fingers over it to tell him to fuck off, then reached over to trace the line that ran up Loki’s left side.

“Oh,” Loki murmured. “It didn’t hurt… but who knows if that’s true or if I just couldn’t tell it hurt because I’ve got nerve damage. This is probably better.”

Thor laid Loki’s hand over his face again and nodded.

 

Thor had been walking into a dream, watching low foliage on hedges spring up around him, when Loki started patting him again and snapped him out of it. Loki’s hand kept settling and then shifting on Thor’s chest, like a dog trying to get comfortable, before it finally came to rest high across his belly. Thor heard Loki’s breathing slow until it was deep and even, gone to clockwork with sleep. He remembered his brother couldn’t hope to hear anything as soft as breath, then realized Loki’s hand was in the perfect position to feel his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his breast.

 

When Thor opened his eyes, his mother’s face was upside down above his own.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Fireworks,” Thor said, letting the word out on an exhale so as not to shift his breathing and wake his brother, who hadn’t moved an inch since they’d fallen asleep. Frigga closed her eyes and nodded.

“Bacon and eggs?” she asked.

“Can you do all the bacon,” Thor began, then inhaled, “and I’ll do eggs for us when we get up?”

She nodded and leaned down to kiss his forehead.

 

It was a cloudless day when they finally went upstairs. After brunch, Thor begged Loki outside and the brothers played badminton with their parents until the latter left to grill burgers and brats and make devilled eggs. It felt so much like summer Frigga said it was unfair that the boys had to go back to school the next day.

“ _It is_ ,” they agreed.

  


In the morning, Thor went into Loki’s room to get him up. Thor was groggy, moving on muscle memory. He’d made it to the edge of the bed and had wrapped his hand around Loki’s ankle to gently squeeze him awake before he’d taken in the whole scene. A shirt of Thor’s that had gone missing a year ago was buttoned up around one of Loki’s pillows like a cozy plaid sham. Loki had it half on top of himself, with his left arm looped around it. His pajama bottoms and boxer briefs were in a heap at the foot of the bed and his right hand was limply curled over his cock. Thor could see the textured scars from the zipper’s burn that ran between Loki’s balls and disappeared under his palm. He could see the hazy patches where semen had dried on Loki’s skin, dull islands amid the orange sheen the sunrise had made of his stomach.

 

Thor had wondered if this side of Loki’s nervous system still worked, but feared to ask in case the subject was a sore one. Knowing Loki could--and did--still touch and enjoy himself struck one item off Thor’s long list of worries.

 

Loki was disoriented when he woke too, and Thor hoped the confusion would last long enough that maybe his brother wouldn’t notice or remember any of this. But then Loki blinked, craned his neck to look himself over, and went wide-eyed.

“Why didn’t you knock?” Loki yelped, then remembered the reason, winced, and swore. “What are you still doing in here?”

Thor backed toward the door as Loki sat up, but Loki didn’t have a shirt on, and Thor wanted to see how his brother’s burns were healing, so he didn’t back away quite as quickly as he could have. It gave Loki enough time to launch himself from the bed and herd Thor toward the door with a hard left hook to the face.

 

The punch was a surprise, and Thor stopped moving altogether. Loki misinterpreted this as being either a prelude to a fight or a refusal, which amounted to the same thing in his book. He swung again and hit Thor in nearly the same place. Thor took one step back, which still wasn’t enough to remove him from the room, so Loki hit him again and threw his weight forward to send Thor out onto the hallway floor. Then he shoved Thor’s legs out of the way and shut his door.

 

By the time Loki had thrown on pajamas, undressed the pillow, hidden the shirt again in the hope that Thor hadn’t noticed it amid the aftermath of masturbation, and opened the door, nothing had changed. Thor was still lying supine on the carpet. Whether he was asleep or the hits had knocked him out cold, Loki wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if there were categories of unconscious.

“Thor?” Loki called softly. He got no response, so he crept closer. “ _Thor_.” Still nothing.

 

He ran back into his room to put his hearing aids in, then hunched over his brother and put an ear to Thor’s mouth to listen to the whisper of his breath moving in and out. He shook Thor’s right arm gently. Shook it a bit harder. Shook both of his arms, then both of his shoulders, and finally saw Thor’s eyelashes flutter.

 

A bruise had begun around Thor’s right eye, spreading from the outer corner and pooling under the lower lid. When Thor fully opened his eyes, the right socket looked empty. A vessel had burst and all the white had gone red, which read as black in the dimness of the hallway. The blue iris seemed suspended between the lids.

“Are you okay?” Loki asked.

Thor’s eyes never focused. After a moment they closed again.

“Fuck.”

 

Loki hurried downstairs to get his mother before she got into the shower. He caught her on her last sip of coffee and was grateful that at least the timing had gone right.

“Mom, can you take a look at Thor?”

 

Frigga feared the worst, thinking the lightning strike was slowly revealing its effects on Thor’s health. She told herself not to be so paranoid. That Thor probably just had flu or food poisoning, or possibly a foreign object stuck up his butt. It was both a surprise and a strange relief to find him sprawled on the floor with a first class shiner. She managed to coax him up and back into bed in under a minute. Loki supposed that if there was a voice either of them would obey in their sleep, it was hers.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she sighed. “You’ll have to stay home and keep an eye on him. I’ll call the office and tell them you won’t be in school. If he starts acting strange or throwing up, you call me right away. He can have acetaminophen, but no aspirin or ibuprofen.”

Loki nodded and went to get the Tylenol from the medicine cabinet, knowing if he waited he’d likely forget what his mother had said and would have to ask her again so he wouldn’t get it backward. Frigga hurried back downstairs to get ready for work.

 

Loki sat at the foot of Thor’s bed and stared. The bruise was swelling now, and Thor’s eye probably wouldn’t open properly for a day or two. He wondered how much his brother would remember. How he’d explain any of it if Thor remembered everything. The past three days had been perfect, even with the fireworks, as they’d had a silver lining of sorts. Now he supposed he’d be back at square one the second Thor looked in a mirror, and another winning-streak would probably be much more difficult to get started.

 

When Thor woke up, he turned his head to check the time and winced.

“Did we miss the bus?”

“No, we’re staying home today,” Loki said. “Does your face hurt?”

“A little. Mostly my neck. Feels like I slept on it funny.”

“Mom said you can take Tylenol but not ibuprofen or aspirin.”

Loki helped Thor sit up so that he could wash the painkillers down with water.

“Four day weekend,” Thor smiled.

“Kind of,” Loki nodded.

“What should we do?”

“I think you’re supposed to rest.”

Thor stretched and rolled out of bed to use the bathroom. He saw his black eye in the mirror and thought nothing of the puffy bruise. It was the red eyeball that held his attention. His favorite color.  He’d never found an accurate facsimile in any photograph or bottle, and in air blood dried so quickly it darkened in just a few minutes. This was still perfect. He’d always wanted to see a subconjunctival hemorrhage up close. It felt impossible. Internal bleeding you could see.

 

“I’m calling you Southpaw now,” Thor teased, hopping back into his bed. Loki was sitting on its edge, waiting to see what they’d do with the day now that it seemed unlikely that Thor would throttle him.

“Can you see okay?” Loki asked quietly.

“Yeah. It looks worse than it is. I’m just a little tired. And achy. And starving. Have you had breakfast?”

Loki shook his head _no_ and Thor led the way to the kitchen where he made eggs and toast while Loki peeled oranges.

  
  


When Frigga got home from work she found the boys on the living room sofa. Thor was Chromecasting nail art compilation videos onto the muted TV. He smiled hello and held a finger up to his lips, then pointed to his ear and pointed to his brother to say Loki had fallen asleep with his hearing aids in.

 

Loki was using Thor’s right thigh as a pillow. His face was puffy and blotchy. The powdery residue of tears looked like spilled milk across his cheeks. A few loose four-strand braids were scattered through his hair. Frigga wondered if the tutorial for those had been on the screen not long ago.

 

She sat reading in the rocking chair by the window until she saw limbs shifting in the corner of her eye.

“My turn,” she said, shooing Thor away with a few flicks of her fingers and sliding into his spot on the sofa.

“What happened?” she asked, after Thor had gone upstairs.

Loki shook his head and started crying again so she put another braid in his hair while she waited for him to calm.

“I remember what everything was like before, but I can’t get back to it. I feel like Mr Hyde… like I’m a fucking monster--sorry,” he winced, “living someone else’s life… or _trying_ to… _failing_ to.”

“You’re not failing anything,” she soothed, stroking his hair back and patting his chest. “You’re just finding your feet. This is all new. Everything’s changed.”

“Thor hasn’t,” Loki said, and Frigga snorted. “What?” Loki whined, drawing the word out into two syllables, the first ascending, the second swinging down from it.

“What would have happened if you’d punched him in the face in February?” she asked. Loki thought for a moment, then frowned.

“He would have handed me my ass.”

Frigga nodded.

“Have you seen him lose his temper lately?” she tried.

“No,” Loki admitted, narrowing his eyes at how odd it was. Before, there had been slammed doors and shouts in far less stressful circumstances.

“No more baseball--or football,” she continued. “He actually does his homework.”

“And mine,” Loki added. It won him a laugh from his mother where others might have disapproved.

“Have you heard him whistle?”

“Yeah, but he’s always been good at that.”

“Good at making clear whistling sounds, but he couldn’t carry a tune to save his life before.”

“I forgot about that part,” Loki laughed. “You’d always ask what he was whistling and when he gave the title of the song you’d laugh.”

“I tried not to.”

“It never worked.”

She tugged his ear.

“Do you think it’s the lightning, or everything else?” Loki asked.

“Both.”

Odin didn’t see Thor’s eye until dinner.

“Your left?” he asked Loki. Loki blinked and braced himself.

“Yes.”

“Not bad,” Odin mused, turning toward Thor to admire the bruise. “Knock him out?”

“Eventually,” Loki admitted, after a beat.

“Two hits?” Thor asked.

“Three,” Loki confessed.

Odin patted Thor’s head.

“Skull like a cinder block. You must get that from your mother.”

Odin felt a kick land on his shin. He was ninety percent certain it had come from Frigga, but both she and Loki were sitting across from him, and neither one of them had moved with the blow or changed their facial expressions.

 

Later, while Loki was showering, Frigga found Thor in his room.

“And now the gory details, please,” she said softly, but in a tone that brooked no refusal. “What happened?”

“I startled him.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was just waking him up.”

“You wake him up every weekday. Has this been going on the whole time?”

“No,” Thor shook his head. “It was just… last night he fell asleep after a fap.”

Frigga closed her eyes and nodded.

“A successful one?” she whispered, and heard the hope in her own voice. Loki hadn’t mentioned sexual difficulties, but then she hadn’t really expected him to come to her about that subject.

“Yeah, there was definitely evidence of success all over the place,” Thor nodded, making them both laugh. “I’m pretty sure he hit me with his left fist because his right one was still glued to his dick.”

This set her shoulders shaking. Her head tipped back in a silent cackle.

  
  


At the end of the week, Thor woke in the middle of the night. He thought the cool air had finally become too much and had pulled him out of sleep. He bent to tug a blanket up from the foot of the bed and saw light peeking under his door from the hallway, then a shadow passing in front of it. He assumed his brother had grown cold too and had gone to the linen closet for a quilt, but then he heard a muffled flapping sound and footsteps on the stairs.

 

Thor followed the lights down to the mudroom, where wet footprints darkened the tile floor. Loki stood naked, completely shining with sweat, loading sopping sheets and pajamas into the washing machine. Thor could see a rivet burn on his brother’s right hip, looking like a mole or a birthmark; below it, the cluster left by pocket change.

“You okay?” Thor whispered. Loki shook his head _no_ while his face crumpled.

“It won’t stop,” he sobbed.

“Go drink a bunch of Gatorade and take a shower. I’ll get this.”

Loki nodded and trudged back up the steps.

 

When Loki came out of the bathroom, all the lights were on upstairs and he worried Thor had gone to wake their mother and had brought her up to check on him. But it was only Thor, bustling about, aiming fans at Loki’s damp mattress and opening all the windows wide for better airflow.

“Come on,” Thor said. “You can sleep in my room.”

“I don’t know if I’m done sweating yet. I don’t want to soak your bed too.”

“You won’t. I made you something.”

Loki followed Thor to his room, where he found half a dozen beach towels layered on the left side of the mattress, two more wrapped around the pillow, and a sheet laid on top of them all.

“Think this’ll be okay?” Thor asked.

“Beats sleeping in the bathtub, which was the only game-plan I could come up with.”

 

Loki wasn’t done sweating. Thor closed the windows so his brother wouldn’t be chilled. He brought more towels so that Loki could wipe himself off. Brought water for him to sip so he wouldn’t dehydrate. He checked and dried Loki’s skin when Loki got too tired and passed out. Thor finally found him dry at five am. He rolled Loki onto the right half of the mattress and ran downstairs to do another load of laundry. It was Saturday and Thor was supposed to mow the lawn in a few hours. He left a note on the fridge for his parents saying he and Loki had been up all night with the sweating, that they’d like to sleep in please, and that he’d do the grass after dinner.

 

It was well past noon when they woke to the scent of blueberry muffins baking. The twins were curled toward each other in the middle of the bed, watching their dreams dissolve around each other’s faces as their minds slowly made their way up into consciousness. Loki’s hair was even wilder than usual, having been slept on wet amid lots of tossing and turning. Thor’s eye was no longer red and the swelling had receded. The bruise was fading to yellow and green now, which was somehow worse than its original purple.

“May I see?” Thor asked.

“See what?”

“Your side.”

“Fine,” Loki sighed. “But you have to tell me why you’re so obsessed with it.”

“Because,” Thor said, leaning up on his left elbow and pulling the blankets down to Loki’s hip, “the last time I got a good look at it, it was split open and still burning. I’d like a more up-to-date image in my head.”

Loki hummed and let Thor have his fill, which took several minutes.

 

When Thor ran the pads of his fingers down the whole length of the scar, Loki opened his mouth, intending to take advantage of such a perfect opportunity to say _see with your eyes, not your hand_ s. All he managed was an airy " _ah_."

“Sorry,” Thor squeaked, but Loki shook his head.

“It didn’t hurt, it just… surprised me.”

Thor exhaled and sagged, then leaned over and kissed the center of the scar, at the dip in the waist above the floating ribs.

“Looks fantastic,” he said, the words warm where they puffed out against Loki’s skin.

Thor pulled the blankets up to his brother’s shoulder again and settled on his back.

“Should we go downstairs and eat breakfast soonish?”

“In a minute,” Loki nodded, sitting up and leaning over, looking for the scar on Thor’s forehead, finding the faded pink spot only by its slightly peeled border. He kissed Thor there and then dipped lower to kiss the tiny Zygomatic bone that had borne the brunt of all of his punches. He thought a moment, decided not to press his luck by kissing Thor’s butt, kissed him on the cheek instead, then bulldozed into him and sent him tumbling off the side of the bed to land in a heap on the carpet. Loki grinned over the edge of the mattress while Thor narrowed his eyes in a mock glare.

“Lightning strikes can cause mood swings,” Loki noted.

“What causes _asshole_ though?”

  
  
  


By mid-June, Thor thought they were in the clear, weather-wise, as far as the school year was concerned. The droughts that had become commonplace in the last decade seemed likely to grip the coming summer too. Winter had been dry, and without any snow days to make up for, most classes had finished their curricula early, leaving everyone to wait out the year by talking to their friends or dozing with their heads on their desks while teachers played vaguely educational movies.

 

Mr Stark had finished the curriculum for physics and decided to do everyone the favor of teaching them more. They put their heads on their desks anyway. Thor watched the ever-darkening sky out the window, first with disbelief, then dismay. So many seeming-storm clouds had come through that spring with nothing but shade in their bellies, leaving parched--if slightly cooler--earth beneath their feet. But Thor could see the streaked blur beneath these that meant downpour, and hear the sound, like boulders tumbling together down a river, that meant thunder far away. He watched unblinking until he caught a flicker of light, then stuffed his notebook in his bag and stood up.

“I have to go get my brother,” Thor said, already on his way out.

“I’m not finished with today’s lesson. You’ll have to wait.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Thor said, not bothering to look back or conceal his laughter, clicking the door shut behind him and hurrying down the hall to fetch Loki from biology class.

 

Dr Strange waved and pointed to Loki when Thor walked in. _Koyaanisqatsi_ was on and half the lights were off. Cell phone screens glowed in the hands of most of the class while the remainder gossiped, played Uno, or napped. Loki was sitting upright with his eyes closed. Sheets of Kleenex were wadded up and stuffed into his ears. Thor tapped the desktop so that the vibrations would make Loki open his eyes. A little of the tension went out of Loki’s shoulders when he saw his brother. Thor tossed his head toward the door and Loki grabbed his bag and hearing aids and almost jumped out of his seat. Strange waved again as they left.

 

Thor led his brother to the music room, with its insulated walls and low ceiling. Mr Rogers had fourth period off, and was sitting at his desk reading.

“We need somewhere quiet to wait out the storm,” Thor explained, on being greeted with one raised eyebrow. He got a nod in the split second before the teacher’s eyes went back to the book.

 

Neither brother had ever taken a music class or been in the marching band. Thor knew Mr Rogers as his baseball coach. When he had come in after the lightning strike to say he was quitting the team so that he could be there for his brother, Rogers had nodded, given him a pat on the back, and congratulated him for having his priorities straight at such a young age. When Thor told his football coach, Mr Qrossmeyster, that he wouldn’t be playing in the fall, Qrossmeyster had not taken the news well and had opted to argue, trying to guilt Thor for letting his team down and for robbing himself of the joy of the game. Thor told him the team was arbitrary, based on zip codes, and that the only thing the game itself accomplished was doling out concussions. Later that day, Qrossmeyster made the mistake of calling Thor’s father, skipping over his mother on the assumption she would be the only one in Thor’s corner. It was the best conversation Thor had ever been allowed to overhear. Odin had put the phone on speaker and repeated Rogers’ conclusion. He’d also echoed Thor’s opinions about zip codes and concussions, then ending by telling Qrossmeyster and that he hoped this would prove to be one in a long line of good decisions on Thor’s part.

 

When Mr Rogers looked up from his reading again, Loki was hunched over a music theory textbook with an engrossed frown on his face.

“I’ve been here ten years and I’ve never seen a student touch one of those things--not even when I’ve assigned it,” Rogers said.

Thor tapped Loki’s arm and then pointed to his ear to tell Loki to put a hearing aid back in for a minute. Mr Rogers caught on and repeated what he’d said.

“But it’s got everything in it,” Loki boggled, frowning further.

“Pretty much. If you want to borrow,” Rogers said the word as if it was in quotation marks, “one of those, no one’s going to miss it.”

Loki nodded rapidly. Mr Rogers looked at Thor, who, though blushing almost alarmingly, was not too shy to smile and throw him a grateful wink with the eye that was safely out of Loki’s sight.

  
  
  
  


They turned sixteen the Thursday before the school year ended. Thor gave Loki a Yamaha keyboard. Loki tried not to cry, failed, and hid his face in Thor’s neck while he hugged him for a full minute. Loki got Thor a manicure kit, a set of nail art tools, and a Sally Beauty gift card so he could pick out the colors he wanted. Frigga gave them tiny Sprocket printers and told them that since their birthday had meant a C-section for her, they each owed her a respectable self portrait. Their father gave the boys his old car, took their mother’s old car himself, and bought her a new one with heated seats, as the winters were getting to her.

 

Thor took the wheel for their inaugural drive. Loki didn’t feel confident driving. If an engine backfired or someone honked their horn, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t panic. And his attention span was still too sketchy to be trusted. It left him free to play music, which meant _My My My!_ sandwiched between _Blue Jeans_ and _Burning Desire_. Thor picked up bottles of nail polish in coral, mint, and periwinkle. Loki picked up pints of ice cream--coffee for both Thor and Frigga, butter pecan for Odin, and chocolate peanut butter for himself.  

 

While they sat on the screened porch, eating their ice cream out of the cartons, Thor asked if the car meant they’d need to get summer jobs to put gas in it and pay for insurance. Frigga said they weren’t allowed to work until they were old enough to vote, and that she and Odin would foot the bill in exchange for having errands run, as she was beyond sick of going to the grocery store every other day to keep up with the eating habits of two growing teenage boys.

 

Thor silently wondered if Loki would ever be able to work. Outside of math, the last two months of school had not gone well. Thor told himself it was early days, but he knew permanent disability was a strong possibility. When he’d checked the mail the past few weeks he’d seen MassMutual’s logo on several envelopes, and he had no doubt his parents had increased their life insurance policies, planning to provide for Loki--for both of their children, really, since Thor had every intention of looking after his brother, and care-taking couldn’t be done for free.

  
  


They thought of Monday as their first official day of summer vacation, as they would have had Saturday and Sunday off regardless. Loki woke earlier than he’d intended to. His circadian rhythm was still set to school-year time. It would be two-and-a-half months before Thor came in to play alarm clock again. Loki put his left hand on his right shoulder and rubbed it, sometimes just with his thumb, sometimes with his whole palm, sometimes squeezing with his fingers. He couldn’t quite get it right, whether because the feedback from his hand interfered with the interpretation or because he didn’t have hands like his brother’s, he wasn’t sure. He had, on a half-dozen occasions, been conscious when Thor had come in to wake him for class, but had pretended to be out cold, not wanting to miss the warm hand wrapped around his ankle or curled over his upper arm and shoulder, pressing softly to wake him up slowly.

 

Loki wiped the sleep from his eyes, popped his hearing aids in, and let himself into Thor’s room. His brother was asleep at the far edge of the bed, facing the open window, almost resting on its ledge. The breeze was shifting his hair, making the wispy bits at his right temple flutter. Outside, the leaves on the trees and hedges flipped over in the wind, flashing the hazy frost of their undersides, seeming to be made of silver. Whiffs of warm earth and cut grass drifted up into the room on air chilled by the dew that lingered in the house’s shadow. Loki didn’t want Thor to sleep through it all.

“What’s your plan?” Loki asked, climbing in behind his brother, feeling the warmth that radiated from Thor brushing against the fronts of his thighs as the scent of Thor’s skin puffed out of the bedding.

“Hmm?”

“For break,” Loki clarified. “Every year I have all these grand plans for summer vacation… a thousand goals I want to accomplish… and then I spend the whole thing lying on my back, paralyzed by the knowledge that it’s going to end and send us back to school in an ever-decreasing number of days.”

“ _Saaaaaaaaame_ ,” Thor groaned, then laughed and rolled onto his back. He arched off the bed with a yawning stretch and Loki watched all the ribs and muscles of the chest and belly come briefly out of hiding before they descended again. The rosy tint of Thor’s skin was shifted toward blue by the cool morning light. Loki thought of hyacinths, whose petals were said to have been stained by Apollo’s tears at the death of their namesake. Thor’s beauty alone would have been more than enough to make Apollo weep. But Loki was fairly certain their own feud was with Zeus, not Zephyrus.

“What did we ever do to piss off Zeus?” Loki asked, and Thor rolled toward him, laughing. His eyes were still closed, but he was grinning and gently knocking his knees against Loki’s legs while he wiggled his toes against the tops of Loki’s feet. His hair was blowing forward over his face now in a way that looked like it tickled. Loki tucked it behind Thor’s ear and allowed himself a light parting-pinch to the lobe as he finished. “Or do you think it was just his usual horny bullshit? ‘Oooh, twinks! Dibs! _Zap._ ’” Loki mocked, and Thor shook, giggling on the bed in front of him. “Only he missed you,” Loki remembered.

“He did not _miss_ me. Look at my butt,” Thor complained, rolling over and offering up his bare rump. He had forgone pajamas now that he was on break and wasn’t obliged to rush out of his room first thing in the morning. Loki leaned down to look at the coiling crystalline pattern on Thor’s skin.

“It’s gone,” Loki breathed.

“What? No, it can’t be,” Thor said, twisting and craning his neck. “Probably just too dark in here to see.”

Loki got Thor’s phone off the nightstand and turned the flashlight on for a better look.

“Gone,” he confirmed, then started laughing.

“What?” Thor asked.

“It was just the lipstick from where he kissed your ass,” Loki explained, and Thor laughed too. “There really isn’t a mark on you,” Loki marveled.

“My forehead,” Thor objected.

“The concrete did that. It doesn’t count.”

Thor frowned and rolled back toward his brother.

“There are too many marks on you,” Thor murmured.

“Some you can’t even see,” Loki agreed.  

Thor turned his face into the pillow.

“There isn’t anything you could have done about any of it,” Loki soothed, hearing Thor take deep, shaky breaths, hold them, and slowly let them out again. “Mom said you saved me.”

“Jane did,” Thor corrected thickly. “And the paramedics.”  

“They both told Mom it was you. Said you were doing CPR. That it kept my blood moving. Kept oxygen going to my brain. They said I’d probably be a vegetable now if you hadn’t done that. Or dead altogether.”

Loki played with Thor’s hair, twirling it around his fingers and letting it slip free into loose curls while Thor heaved ragged sobs into his pillow for several minutes.

 

Thor dried his eyes with the sheets and cleared his throat.

“We should make a list of everything we want to do this summer,” he said.

“I love making lists,” Loki sighed. “Not sure I’m capable of crossing much off of them these days.”

“Well, we’ve never managed to accomplish anything with our other summers, so the bar is pretty low,” Thor smiled.

Thor shoved Loki face down into the mattress and clambered over him to get to his desk. Loki enjoyed even that padded bit of roughhousing. It was a welcome step back into the carefree days that had come before. Loki heard papers rustling and then Thor was climbing over him again, letting his shins drag over the backs of Loki’s thighs. He flopped down onto his belly, set a notepad on the pillow, and started writing.

“First up, I’m doing our nails,” Thor said.

“What color do I get?”

“Whichever one you want,” Thor shrugged. “Or all three.”

“But which one would look best on me?”

“Mint.”

Loki nodded.

“Learning to read music. And play it,” Loki dictated, and Thor took it down. They continued for half an hour, lazing and nudging each other, remembering all the things they’d always meant to do.

 

By noon, Thor was sitting cross-legged on the screened porch floor with Loki’s feet in his lap. Thor hadn’t even begun to paint and already Loki understood the allure of manicures and pedicures. Thor was rubbing oil into all of his cuticles, then shaping and trimming them with pleasantly chilly tools. Frowning and fussing, filing the ends of his nails into smooth curves.

“Is it my fried nervous system, or does it feel cool without feeling wet?” Loki asked, when Thor began to apply the clear base coat.

“It just feels cool for me too,” Thor nodded. “It’s one of my favorite parts of this.”

Loki hummed and nodded and ignored his borrowed music theory book in favor of leaning forward to watch Thor’s lovely hands while they worked.

  


“It’s June twenty-eighth,” Thor said over breakfast three days later, watching Loki stab a slice of strawberry five times only to have it fall from his fork on each occasion. Thor picked it up with his fingertips and popped it in his brother’s mouth, which was waiting open like a baby bird’s.

“What happens on the twenty-eighth?”

“It’s the end of the month. And it’s Thursday, which is the new Friday. The Fourth of July is next Wednesday. People will probably start setting off fireworks tonight.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

 

When Thor told their mother they’d be sleeping in the basement all week, she told them they might as well buy a proper a set of linens for the sofa bed and better towels for the downstairs bathroom. For the latter she insisted on white, but she left left the former up to them since they’d be the ones sleeping in it. She sent them off to Macy’s with her credit card and a budget that seemed absurdly high to them, as they’d never purchased bedding before. When they got to the store, they realized she was just being realistic.

 

They both gravitated to the same collection, petting the blankets and looking around for the shelves that held the stock. They opted to copy the store’s display: white sheets, charcoal duvet, pillowcases in both of those colors, and a light grey throw. They bought the comforter that was the most fun to squish.

 

“It goes with the basement’s colors,” Thor excused, his voice nearly drowned out by the crinkling rustle of plastic bags as the boys dragged their enormous purchases into the mudroom to wash them. Frigga peeked and poked through their choices and smiled. Everything did match the decor she’d put downstairs, and all the pieces coordinated well, but that was clearly not why they had been chosen. Everything was cotton and modal knit, a Loki-approved combination, and it all had the texture of well-worn t-shirts. Slouchy and soft, in dim, drowsy greys. She suspected her sons intended to sleep and lounge their way through the summer.

“You’ve set a dangerous precedent,” Frigga smiled, and they widened their eyes. “This is downright respectable. From now on, I’ll have to send you two out to all the white sales in my place.”

They wrinkled their noses and shook their heads _no_ , then started in on laundering their nest.

 

The boys went downstairs not long after dinner, knowing that, while fireworks were meant for darkness, firecrackers were meant for noise and could be set off at any time. They made up their bed and then showered in silence, as Loki’s hearing aids were already out. Afterward they watched _Kingdom of Heaven_ and wished the whole movie was just King Baldwin IV being a dreamboat in one of the most arresting costumes ever imagined.

 

“Was leprosy really that bad?” Loki asked, looking to Thor, knowing his interests lay in health and medicine, which meant he’d looked into an unusual number of illnesses and injuries.

Thor nodded and grabbed the pen and notebook that were beside him on the bed. Loki thought his brother had intended--and forgotten--to take notes on the film, but saw now that Thor had planned for conversation.

 _Still is if you can’t access care and antibiotics_ , Thor wrote.

“It’s a bacteria?” Loki asked, horrified.

_Terrifying, right?_

Loki shuddered and buried himself beneath the blankets.

 

They watched _The Fifth Element_ next to cheer themselves up with its busy sets and bright costumes. When Loki told Thor he should do nail art inspired by the movie, Thor went wide-eyed, flung himself on top of his brother, rolled them so that Loki was on top, then wrapped him up in arms and legs and squeezed him for all he was worth.

“If I pee on you, it’s your own fault,” Loki wheezed. He groaned and sagged when Thor loosened his grip. Otherwise they both remained where they were.

“Have you been able to hear anything from outside?” Loki whispered.

Thor held the tips of his thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart to say _a little_.

“Are you okay?” Loki asked, and Thor nodded and smiled and kissed him on the cheek for his worry. “It’s late, isn’t it?” Loki murmured, and Thor nodded again and held up two fingers to tell him the time.

 

When they were ready for bed, Loki turned his phone’s flashlight on and set it on the end table, then turned out the rest of the lights.

 

The phone’s light was slightly pink and lent its color to Loki’s skin after he took off his pajamas.

“I want to feel the sheets,” he said, and climbed into bed to lift and tug the blankets with his legs until they were wrapped around him the way he liked. “They’re nice. You should try them like this.”

Thor didn’t bother trying to explain to his brother that he had just pulled all the blankets away and there was nothing left for him to lie under. He knew he was supposed to take off his t-shirt and boxers and come close enough to find out. He was already sitting up and pulling his shirt over his head. He knew most of the people in the world would have balked by now if they’d been in his position. Fallen for the trick. Looked the gift horse in the mouth. Thor was happy to write it off as their loss. Happy to know better than to cost himself something. Everything. Beyond happy. Something more even-keeled. Relieved. Comforted. Open, yet contained. Coupled, thereby doubled. Needed and known.

 

Loki raised an arm and leg, holding the blankets up like a tent flap so that Thor could slip inside, then lowered and arranged them around his limbs, making sure nothing below Thor’s neck was left uncovered.

“Good?” Loki whispered, and Thor nodded. “Everything at the hospital was so hard and cold. At school too.”

Thor hugged him and hummed against his neck. Nipped his ear and kissed his cheek. He felt Loki lean forward, pressing their bony breasts together, then hook an arm and leg around him to pull him closer too. Thor could feel Loki’s breath puffing out against his lips. Smell it. Sweet and strangely cool. Mint toothpaste. A boy’s scrubbed mouth, whole, alive and hopeful. That was what a world full of cowards would ask Thor to fear. But Thor’s definition of frightening had outstripped theirs by an insurmountable distance now. And he had outstripped it.

 

He licked past Loki’s lips and coaxed out his tongue, baiting it with little strokes and flicks of his own until he could pull it into his mouth and hold it there, sucking it gently, sidestepping the pesky obstacle of ribs Loki had been fumbling with. When a similar obstruction occurred at their hips, Thor reached down to open the door, tugging and twisting them both until something clicked at the base of their spines and everything dissolved.

 

Thor licked Loki’s belly clean while his brother giggled and jerked, gasping at the thrill and tickle until he was panting and slick. Thor dried their skin with his pajama shirt and straightened the blankets over them again. They settled into the position Loki had arranged the last time they’d slept downstairs and fell straight into a deep, dreamless sleep that carried them to noon.

 

All through the summer, at any threat of noise or thunder, Thor would find Loki and lead him downstairs. By August, if the sky out the window darkened in the middle of the day, Loki’s first thought was of his brother. It was rarely followed by a second one. The fluttering in his stomach that accompanied bad weather was no longer low in the bowel, but high up behind his ribs. He finally caught the sleight of hand. Thor had made a switch. Made two. He’d swapped death for life, then substituted himself for thunderstorms. Stepped on Zeus’ and Hades’ toes. Tricked them out of themselves. Loki only loved his brother more for the thefts.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost


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